Since retiring from the Saskatoon Police Service in 2013, Ernie Louttit has had three books published. In his latest, The Unexpected Cop, he reflects on various aspects of policing. He shared some of his views with the Leader-Post while in Regina for a reading at First Nations University on Thursday.

On policing and mental health

“When I first went through police college, I think we had one class on mental health, and I think (now) they do seven days and its ongoing…

“Where we dealt with a lot of stabbings and that was the primary serious call would be a stabbing or something, and shootings were a rarity. And now it seems like every day I hear about a shooting or a gun arrest or a gun possession arrest.”

Ernie Louttit’s new book, The Unexpected Cop, is published by University of Regina Press.TROY FLEECE /
Regina Leader-Post

On investigating sexual assault reports

“Everybody’s a lot better educated in a lot of ways. That was maybe the sparking to write a chapter on that, was people saying, ‘It’s no use reporting a sexual assault.’

“When I first started (with the Saskatoon Police Service in 1987), I think we had two classes on that in the police college and then you kind of learned as you went. We had no DNA back then; it was blood sampling and stuff like that.

“The biggest thing is how you treat the victim and how you gather the information and that’s what makes I think most police investigations successful.

“It’s mostly being empathetic and listening and gathering the facts. What happens at court has nothing to do with police; all you do is gather the information and present it to the court.”

“(Colten Boushie’s shooting death) was the extreme and that’s not a reflection of what happens every day here in Saskatchewan or even in Canada for that matter. For the most part, the rural police officers, they face a lot of different challenges you don’t face in the city — your backup’s far away, everything.

On the new book and his future plans

“I’m five years out of policing and so there’s stuff in (the new book) that was a lot more personalized. … I kind of interchange between Native and Indigenous, First Nation, because I’ve had all the names since I was a kid. First I was an Indian, then we became First Nations, then I was Aboriginal for a while, and now apparently I’m Indigenous.

“But first off, I’m Canadian, and very proud of it. And I kind of hope that comes across in the book as well.

“I’ve got one more (book to write) about policing and mostly about leadership. Leadership’s one of those topics that is always relevant. And I did write a fiction book, but I’m just waiting to hear how that’s going. I’ve got it with one publisher. … It’s about two veterans after the (Second World) war and it takes an adventure from there.”

On writing and reading

“I was an avid reader, I love reading, but I always loved telling stories — that’s how I taught leadership. And we used to dictate our reports in Saskatoon police in a dictaphone, so you would tell a story every time you left a report. Who, what, when and where, why — it could be anything from a broken window to a homicide. And I left 14,000 dictated reports, not counting investigation reports and all that stuff, so I was always telling stories into the telephone, so when I started writing I just thought I’m just going to write like I talk.

“I hope anybody that reads (the new book) enjoys it. … And I hope if you don’t even read my book, at least you’re reading somebody’s books. That’s where leaders come from: Read to lead.

“I just finished An Epic Tragedy by Max Hastings, about the Vietnam War. … It was an amazing book.